


A Resting Place

by violet_storms



Series: sapphic september 2020 [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bonding, Coping, F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sapphic September, Shell Cottage (Harry Potter), Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28402119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violet_storms/pseuds/violet_storms
Summary: At Shell Cottage, Luna helps Hermione learn to heal.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Luna Lovegood
Series: sapphic september 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1907998
Kudos: 21





	A Resting Place

**Author's Note:**

> Contains light descriptions of panic/anxiety attacks.
> 
> _outlined in september, written in december, for sapphic september 2020. prompt: "stars."_

_“Of all the stars, the fairest…”  
\- Sappho Fragment_

The war is not over.

The war is not over, and it feels like it’s never going to be over, but at Shell Cottage, Hermione can pretend it is. This place is not her home, and time is still moving forward and running out, but they are here, and she does not think it is so wrong to want to rest. So she makes a space for herself, a tiny place in her head where she can breathe. She carves it out _(Bellatrix pressing a knife into her throat)_ and tries not to think too much.

But Hermione has always thought too much.

There is no resting place for her at night. When the sun goes down Hermione’s mind becomes a prison cell, bars rising up behind her eyelids. It is so hard to breathe at night, so hard to fall asleep at all. The first time she wakes up screaming it’s only in her head. The second time is not so kind. _Please, stop._ The words threaten to choke her. _Stop, I’m begging you, the sword is just a copy, I swear, stop,_ “Stop,” she says aloud, and tastes tears on her lips. Is she crying? The discovery makes her hands shake harder, whether from panic or anger she cannot say. She feels so powerless, out of control of her own body.

When Luna speaks, Hermione nearly screams again. She has forgotten she is not alone in the room. The other girl lays on the floor in a sleeping bag, her pale blond head the only thing keeping her from blending in with the wooden floorboards. “Are you all right?” she asks quietly.

“No,” says Hermione, because there is no point in pretending, not with her hands still shaking like this.

“None of us are, you know,” says Luna, sitting up. She leans over and pins Hermione’s hands between her own. “Count the prime numbers.”

“What?” says Hermione.

“Trust me. I’ll help. Two, three, five…”

“Seven. Nine. No, eleven. Thirteen. Um, seventeen. Nineteen.” Hermione takes a deep breath in. “Twenty-three. Twenty-nine…”

“That’s good,” says Luna, releasing her hands. “My mother used to do that with me. It lets you focus on other things. Try it the next time.”

“There’s not going to be a next time,” says Hermione. Luna looks at her sadly.

“You should sleep,” is the only thing she says.

The next time is worse because it doesn’t happen at night, like it should. It happens in the middle of the day, when she is standing outside in the sun, and suddenly her chest is too small for her lungs and her heart is racing. Hermione doesn’t know what’s happening to her, why it won’t stop, but then Luna is there at her side. “Two, three, five, seven,” she whispers, and Hermione forces her mind to focus on that. “Eleven...thirteen...seventeen.”

“Do you feel the sun?” says Luna. Hermione nods. “What about the sea, can you hear the sea?” Hermione takes a shuddering breath. The sea is loud against the rocks. “You are right here,” says Luna. “You are safe.”

Safety is a concept swiftly becoming unfamiliar to Hermione. Her mind used to be her strength, the one thing she could always count on, and now it seems to be abandoning her. What can she trust, if not her head? Her resting place is now a cage, locking her into memories of a darkened room. No light, no light.

Except for one thing.

Hermione has never liked Luna Lovegood. She regrets that now, regrets with bitter retrospect the prejudgement she had given to a girl she barely knew. Luna is kinder to her than she has any right to be. She looks at her with understanding and never once complains about the nightmares that pull them both from sleep. The fourth time Hermione wakes up with a scream clawing up her throat she realizes she’s never thanked her, so when Luna sits up and starts to count, _two three five seven,_ Hermione stops her.

“Luna,” she says. “Thank you. You...you are a better person than I am.”

“That isn’t true,” says Luna, a smile ghosting over her face. “I’m just more patient.”

When Luna lies back down on the floor, Hermione’s eyes stay open. She stares at the ceiling and counts in her head. _Eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen. Twenty-three. Twenty-nine._

“Luna,” she whispers into the darkness. “You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

There are some things not worth speaking of. What we do in the darkness, how we survive, who we hold onto—sometimes it is better to leave those words unsaid. The moon and stars will keep your secrets. Hermione whispers hers across a damp pillow to a girl she never thought to love.

The war is not over. The war feels like it’s never going to be over, but at Shell Cottage, in the smallest room, above the sea, Hermione pretends it is. She pretends there is a place inside her head, where she can breathe. A resting place, where she is not alone.

There are some things not worth speaking of. There are other sounds at night to counter screams, and other ways to stop your hands from shaking, but sometimes it is better to leave those things behind when the sun rises. Hermione does not speak of how the moon and stars are not as beautiful by half as Luna’s silver hair lit by pale light, or how the sound of the sea pales in comparison to her voice counting down to silence. _Two. Three. Five. Seven._ She does not speak of it, but it is still true. 

The war is not over.

The war is not over, but Hermione is not fighting it alone, and for now, that is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my last fic for Sapphic September 2020! There were thirty prompts and I did nine, but September is the ninth month, so really I think I did it exactly right. Obviously, I had to use a Sappho quote somewhere in this challenge - I thought it worked best here.


End file.
